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Home / MISC Areas / Routers/Gateways Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable?

Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) ewmbbs Profile I just bought the 160gb version of this NAS. http://www.buffalotech.com/products/product-detail.php?productid=71&categoryid=16 After doing a little digging, I discovered it is running linux, and apparantly there is quite a significant hacking community in Japan for this product. It appears you can convert it to standard linux server with full support for apache, php, etc. But it's hard to tell for sure because web translations can be a bit murky. Some of sites for hacking are located here: http://www.limo.fumi2kick.com/fbbs/lmwiki.rhtml?topic=LinkStation http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley-SanJose/3271/ It looks like the linkstation has a lot of potential, beyond being a standard NAS. Anyone know more about it? 07-23-2004 16:46:32

RE: Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) janole Profile | Email I've recently bought a LinkStation HD-120HLAN (120gb) and managed to install a telnetd, ftpd and also gcc. Once you read thru these japanese sites with http://babelfish.altavista.com you figure out that it's pretty easy. Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to open the LinkStation box without breaking some parts, but I don't care at all now that I have a small and silent Linux box After connecting the internal 120gb harddisk thru an external USB 2.0 harddisk kit, I made a backup of the first partition with "dd". Then I ran "fix_ext2_magic" from http://bonner.s45.xrea.com/ . After this I was able to mount the first partition easily. You can download a precompiled telnetd and ftpd from the site mentioned above ("linuxbox-1.0.ppc.tar.gz"). Just install it and don't forget to edit the root password so that you can login later. Reconnect the harddisk to the LinkStation and there you go. It's absolutely stunning! A great little box with so many features and now I can even login and compile whatever I want Cheers ole at mobileways.de 09-08-2004 04:28:12

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) Shaan Profile I just got off the phone with Buffalo, and they pointed me to a new website they are setting up. http://www.revogear.com Here they are offering what is basically the linkstation as a bare-bone kit (w/o HD). No hacking requied. The website is only half done as of right now I'm sorry to say, but looks interesting. Anyone else notice that the linkstation is running a telnet server out of the box? You can connect to it with any ftp-user you create and snoop around. Unfortunately, without the root pwd you can't do many of the more interesting things... Ole, mind putting together a little howto for those of us who already have the linkstation and are squeamish about following half-garbled japanese instructions? 09-21-2004 12:54:31

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) osxaddict Profile Hmm.. This sounds like just want I want.. A nice file server that can be converted to run a standard Apache installation (w/PHP & friends) as well as an SMTP server (Exim) + IMAP server (Courier) + SpamAssassin + FTP server and a TFTP server as well for my Cisco VOIP phone.. I gather that a multi-drive setup is somewhat out of the question on this unit (e.g. for a RAID setup)? I guess beggars can't be choosers, at least for $150! Now I might be able to retire my old Beige G3 Machintosh which is providing the above services (albeit somewhat slowly).... 09-24-2004 16:28:47

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) osxaddict Profile Just another quick note.. IF you decide to buy a Kuro Box from http://www.revogear.com, please be aware that their shopping cart system is NOT secure (no https).. Your credit card # will go out over the Internet in the clear... Buyer beware. I put in a call to their 800# and will be ordering one on Monday morning.. (they're in Texas & gone already for the weekend). 09-24-2004 16:44:39

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) wartstew Profile | Email I also just bought a Linkstation. I have big plans for it. I did do the install telnet thing on it, but don't have root access going on it yet. At this point I decided to start a forum on Yahoogroups for this thing where I promptly posted (with pictures) how I took mine apart (and more pictures of what's inside). I also posted my goals for this thing which is basically to get Debian Linux/PPC base install running on it with all the "apt" tools, so that then the box can be easily made to do about anything you want by issuing simple "apt-get" commands. Then this quiet little 17-watt box will get real interesting. One stumbling point will be the fact that the Kernel (and probably an initrd as well) are stored in a flash memory chip that is soldered onto the motherboard. I think Buffalo included a tools to work with this (asflash) but it doesn't seem to be documented. The problem is of course that in tampering with this, you get one chance to get it right, after that you have a computer that won't boot. Then what! There also might be some diagnostic mode jumpers (got pictures of this posted too, in the "pictures" section) that might bail us out. Anyway, here is the link: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BuffaloLinkstation There isn't much there yet, and since Yahoo hasn't even put it on it's public listings yet, this is the first public's access to it. 10-01-2004 01:06:04

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) osxaddict Profile Just thought I'd mention.. If you're interested in hacking or whatever with the Linkstation or Kuro box, please visit the forums over at http://www.revogear.com and look for the 'forums' link on the main page. This is the primary english set of forums for both of these products and seems to be fairly active. 10-10-2004 22:44:15

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) dlam Profile Based on the information from the Yahoo group, I have make a quick how-to page to obtain root in the LinkStation. Please see http://dlam.org/linkstation-rootaccess.html 10-15-2004 21:01:58

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) JD38011 Profile 01)The news about this thing just found its way under my rock but my first thought was that one way to add another market for the thing would be to give a fast HD instead and market it home/small-sized videographers. Seems like it would be bound to make a great place to store all that digitized footage from old home movies or whatever and allow a reasonably fast home PC to edit, author and burn them to DVD. But if you can get one sans HD, what would keep you from putting in a 10K HD instead? 02) What happened to the Yahoo group? They say it doesn't exist. Did it get Yahelled? What happened, did someone post a picture of the Linkstation opened up with no clothes on? 01-18-2006 22:26:30

RE:Is the Linkstation by Buffalo Technology Hackable? (modified 0 times) Ydef Profile Yahoo groups are still there: LinkStation_General@yahoogroups.com kurobox@yahoogroups.com 2.6 kernel upgrade has been feasible now for the last four months or so too. Best buy is the kurobox since you can put in your own drive. 03-07-2006 04:02:52

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